THE GOLDEN AGE OF GM AND GMC
Not that many decades ago, General Motors Corporation was the world’s biggest business by market capitalisation. It used to be said that what was good for GM was good for America. It’s GMC truck division certainly was, as were the diesel engine interests that led to the formation of Detroit Diesel, another US legend in the commercial truck world.
As Supreme Allied Commander in Europe at the time of the D-Day Normandy landings and afterwards, General – later US President – Dwight D Eisenhower stated that the GMC 2½-ton CCKW 6x6 was one of the ten most important items of equipment in the USA’s Second World War military inventory. It could hardly be otherwise. Total CCKW production exceeded half a million units – extra to which were 21,000 DUKW amphibians with the same straight-six gasoline engine and driveline.
Although no longer the world biggest manufacturing corporation, in 2019, GM still managed to crank out over 7.7 million cars and SUVs. Alas, other than pickups and their derivatives, there were no commercial trucks in this total – after years in retreat, its GMC and Chevrolet truck lines finally got the chop in the last recession.
Such is the narrow – and it might be said narrow-minded – focus of GM today, the fact it ever was a major player in the truck game is airbrushed out of the brand’s histories. This equally applies to other arms of the corporation in its golden heyday.
